News in Degrees: 7° September | British Vogue | Nokia Lumia 920 | Cheetah | Barclays | Adobe Social | London’s FNO

7 September 2012

New Initiatives

This year has seen an increasing rise of digital magazine content and brands are feeling the pressure to live up to expectations.  Elle is the most recent to take the digital stratosphere by both hands and has launched its first-ever mobile site due to increasing demand from consumers.  Elle’s website is visited by 450,000 unique users a month and editor-in-chief Lorraine Candy says the new push for mobile will give their readers a ‘truly 360 Elle experience’.

As quiet as a mouse and as succinct and subtle as expected – British Vogue relaunched its website (www.vogue.co.uk) on Monday.  Slaves to the internet, it seems that our focus has shifted from written content to images that speak a thousand words (take the influx of infographics for example!) – the new Vogue site uses stunning photography, seamless navigation and a clean, flawless layout to fully demonstrate not only the expertise of their in-house digital team but also the importance of integrating user experience with web design.

Grolsch has partnered with global marketing agency LBi to launch their new digital marketing strategy.  The Dutch premium beer has upped their overall online presence with a revamped website, a push for social media and improved social content.  The new revamp follows nicely alongside Grolsch’s new tagline ‘Choose Interesting’ – the site, perhaps most impressive, is a unique experience for the user – scrolling down will take you on an aesthetically-pleasing journey through the brand’s history – good work from LBi!

New Products

Nokia – was this a really silly mistake or just another ploy to grab our attention?  The company has struggled as of late to make a dent in the hyper-competitive mobile phone market.  The launch of the new Lumia 920 smartphone is their attempt to do just so – its main feature is its PureView camera, which claims to take blur-free photos every time.  The Finnish company have had to apologise however, after an advert for the new smartphone, claiming that it had been filmed using the device itself, appears to be false .  As if we’d miss this – check out the advert for yourself and see if you can catch the reflection of their very unsubtle camera crew.  Naughty Nokia.

Amazon’s US press conference yesterday unveiled its plans for the later part of 2012.  The Kindle Fire tablet and Kindle Fire HD (at prices £129 and £199, respectively) will be available in the UK from 25^th October – the first time a tablet from the company will be available to purchase in this country.  The Kindle Fire HD tablet will feature stereo speakers and an HDMI port (you’ll be able to connect the device to a television!) as well as a luminated touchscreen.  Amazon also announced a ‘fifth generation Kindle’ – the Kindle Paperwhite.  It has a built-in front light for reading in all light conditions – no more squinting in the dark then!

Technology

Olympian, celebrity and internet phenomenon, Usain Bolt, may have his work cut out for him.  The Jamaican’s top speed of 27.78mph has been beaten, by a robot called Cheetah.  The machine, funded by the Pentagon reached 28.3mph when tested on a treadmill and has been built for use in the military.  Unsurprisingly inspired by the real cheetah, the robot is powered by a hydraulic pump and has been described as ‘an incredible technical achievement’.

The Paralymics have been a resounding success so far – Team GB have won copious medals (many of them gold) and tickets have outsold beyond former predictions – a benchmark for the Rio games in 2016.  Oscar Pistorius – the face of the games this year – is one of the many paralympians using carbon fibre blades to race the straight.  The blades are made from 80 layers of carbon fibre, each thinner than a human hair.  Pistorios lost his 200m race against Brazil’s Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira, accusing the winner of having longer blades than him despite the fact that they were approved by the IPC – sparking what has been dubbed ‘technology doping’.

Company Strategy

Barclays is overhauling its global digital roster, the new brief covers digital advertising across a wide range of Barclays and covers their retail, wealth and corporate sectors including, Barclaycard.  The bank already uses a number of agencies – including Dare, LBi, Profero, Ogilvy & Mather and SapientNitro – across various markets.

Ad agency, Leo Burnett has been appointed by Coca Cola to handle its pan-European advertising account for Vitamin Water.  The soft drink brand will utilise Atelier, from the agency’s luxury division.

Volkswagan Commercial Vehicles has elected Adam&Eve/DDB to handle its £5 million advertising and digital account.  The account was originally handled by Iris, who will continue to work on VW’s retail marketing and web development.

Fashion retailers, AllSaints, have called upon Beattie McGuinness Bungay to handles its advertising account, worth £2 million.  They’ve also appointed the agency’s media division, BMB Media, to its media business.

Consumer product company, P&G, have signed a deal with cinema sales house, Pearl & Dean, to create content based spots for UK movie releases.  The content will include coverage of premieres, celebrities and behind-the-scenes footage – tailored to P&G products – and will be shown in cinemas before the film begins.

Industry Moves

CBS Outdoor have appointed former advertising director for Future, Malcolm Stoodley, to the new role of UK sales director, UK Direct.

Creative ad agency AMV have hired Toby Allen and Jim Hilson from Wieden & Kennedy to their creative department.

DLKW Lowe – ad agency with a client list that includes thetrainline.com and Halfords – has hired Charlie Hurrell to the new role of joint head of account manager.  Hurrell joins DLKW Lowe from Glue Isobar as client services director.

Marketing director for Stella Artois’ Western Europe division James Watson, will be leaving to join the marketing team at Dairy Crest – a UK dairy company including brands, Clover, County Life and Cathedral City.

Social-media chief Musa Tariq has been prised from Burberry and will be taking on a similar role at sports giant Nike.

Social Media

Facebook have sealed their Instagram takeover – finally!  The site actually bid for the photo-sharing network back in April and has now closed the deal with a bid of £300m in cash and 23 million Facebook shares.  Instagram has more than 50 million users and brands continue to embrace it as a channel to show off their latest products – perhaps a bright future for Facebook after tumbling share prices?

Social media has become an important channel for businesses and is one of the most imperative aspects of digital marketing.  Adobe have launched Adobe Social – a product for marketing teams that aims to turn our social efforts into actual, measurable results.  Designed with businesses in mind, Adobe Social allows you to push content out to all channels, saving time and effort; it also gives you real-time insight about your customers and how your posts are resonating with them – are your social efforts effective enough?

LinkedIn continues to roll out new features after its promise to redesign its site – one in particular may be very familiar.  The professional networking site added a notification stream on Wednesday.  New notifications will show up in the top left hand corner of the user homepage and will feature a red circle for new activity – Facebook anyone?

The Rest

Oxford Street, a hubbub of activity on a daily basis anyway, was packed with hungry, passionate fashionistas last night as Fashion’s Night Out 2012 arrived in London.  The one day a year event attracts thousands of shoppers and this year was no exception.  The event encourages eager shoppers to flood the shops of cities all across the globe with limited-edition products, celebrity appearances and musical performances.

Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the sunshine!

Bearing Partnership is a leading specialist recruitment firm representing Digital Media and Ecommerce companies. Established for nearly a decade, we have been helping leading brands attract the brightest minds in technology, marketing and the executive management.